Voice Chat On The Nintendo Switch Is An Absolute Mess

We knew that Nintendo's take on voice chat was going to be different, but I think everyone was expecting something a bit less complicated than what we're seeing out of the recently revealed headset from Hori. It seems to involve a whole bunch of unnecessary cords that will really restrict the way the console can be played.

The folks over at Nintendo Life got their hands on the Hori headset reveal for the Nintendo Switch and, like pretty much everyone we're seeing in various message boards, they weren't too impressed.

Before you argue that three cords isn't all that much to fuss with, keep in mind that we're talking about something as basic as voice chat functionality on Nintendo's most modern console. If that functionality was less complicated on the original Xbox, then you're doing something wrong.

We imagine this bizarre workaround had to be created in order to save some development money and keep the price of a Switch relatively low but, honestly, I'd have rather paid a few more bucks up front and had integrated, normal-ass voice chat than what we're being offered here.

Since the cord that plugs into the Switch itself is so short (and since it is shown in "portable" mode in the diagram) we assume this means that the voice chat functionality won't be available in docked mode. That's kind of a big issue right out of the gate.

From there, you need to plug a special dongle into your Switch's headphone jack. That dongle has two cords; one going to your phone and the other to the headset. Keep in mind that we're not throwing shade on the device itself, just that Nintendo designed a gaming machine where something like this is required. The headset looks fine and even resembles a squid from Splatoon, but the nightmare of cords can't be ignored.

When Nintendo first announced it would handle voice chat through smart devices, I thought it was weird, but not too big of an issue. I assumed you'd use a Nintendo app on your phone and just have the headset attached either by one cord or Bluetooth. Again, silly, but not totally ridiculous. This setup, though, seems like a bit much. Maybe we're overreacting here, you're certainly welcome to share your take in the comments below.

Thankfully, there aren't a lot of Switch titles that even need voice chat just yet. It would be great in Mario Kart 8 and the upcoming Splatoon 2, but that's about it for the time being. Plus, Nintendo has never been a big player in the online gaming scene in the first place, so unless we get Smash Bros. and a whole bunch of other competitive games, we're not sure how often we'll even need to wrap ourselves up in all of those cords.

It's easy to read this as Nintendo being Nintendo, but even Nintendo had to realize this was about the least elegant solution to their voice chat needs, right?